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Mercedes ends production on Maybach brand

Mercedes is winding down the Maybach brand, as hardly any of the few who could afford one were willing to buy one. Photo Credit: Kevin.B/Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA

Mercedes has had enough of its underperforming uber-luxury brand Maybach. Maybach has been making big, expensive cars that haven’t been selling at all, leading to the decision to pull the plug.

Mercedes to focus on upcoming S series

Car magazine AutoWeek confirmed with an executive at Mercedes-Benz that Maybach is going to cease production and therefore existence in 2013. The modern Maybach brand has not been competitive in the luxury car market at all.

Mercedes is planning instead to focus on the update to its S-class sedans, which will get a more diverse lineup when the next generation arrives. The new S-class is said to be coming in six different body styles and three different wheelbase configurations including an “S600 Pullman.” According to CNN, Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche told a Frankfurt newspaper that the new S-class would “replace the Maybach.”

No one will notice

The current company called Maybach was launched by Mercedes in 2002, according to Automobile Magazine. The parent company, Daimler, aimed for sales of about 2,000 cars per year, in line with its competition, Bentley and Rolls Royce.

However, those sales never materialized. The few buyers who could afford a Maybach, which ranged in price from $350,000 to $1.4 million, according to CNN, didn’t buy them. In the U.S., according to Automobile Magazine, Maybach sold all of 66 cars in 2009 and 63 in 2010. According to CNN, only 157 worldwide sales occurred in 2010.

By comparison, BMW, managed to sell 2,711 Rolls-Royce cars that same year. Bentley, owned by Volkswagen, posted global sales of about 4,000 in 2009, according to the BBC. According to USA Today, Bentley sold 5,117 cars globally in 2010. Maybach simply couldn’t compete.

S-Class already a moneymaker

The S-Class sells well, according to Automobile Magazine; 11,199 of them sold in 2009 and 13,068 in 2010. The most expensive of the S-Class lineup starts at $210,900 for the S65 AMG, more than $100,000 less than the entry-level Maybach 57.

Mercedes plans to augment the already-proven S-Class lineup, including an S600 Pullman model, according to USA Today. Pullman normally refers to a sleeper car on a passenger train, but the Pullman moniker is one that Mercedes has been using for limousines since 1928, according to AutoBlog, many of which have become preferred transportation for heads of state.

The most recent was the S600 Pullman Guard, which was released in 2008. The S600 Pullman Guard is the limousine in the Mercedes lineup of luxury armored cars. The Pullman guard was powered by a 517 horsepower, 5.5-liter V-12 and is capable of resisting gunfire and grenade blasts. The S600 Pullman that is projected for release in 2013 will probably not be an armored car, however.